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Bruce Springsteen movie filmed Freehold, stars Jeremy Allen White
“Deliver Me from Nowhere,” starring Jeremy Allen White about Bruce Springsteen, filmed this early 1980s scene in downtown Freehold on Jan. 10.
- New Jersey’s film industry generated a record $833 million in revenue in 2024, surpassing the previous high.
- Generous state tax credits and the end of the 2023 writers’ strike have helped attract numerous productions.
- Many A-list celebrities, including Timothee Chalamet and Adam Sandler, have been spotted filming across the state.
Oscar winner Timothee Chalamet was here, conjuring up Bob Dylan on The Count Basie Center for the Arts stage in Red Bank.
Claire Danes was in Red Bank, too, vandalizing a pizza shop, hopefully as part of a movie shoot. The Sandman, Adam Sandler, was here, playing in his customary pick-up basketball game at the Bucky James Community Center in Long Branch. And Bruce Springsteen was here, watching Jeremy Allen White play Springsteen all over Monmouth County. Although, to be fair, Springsteen lives here, so that might not count.
Still, the film industry generated a record $833 million in 2024 in New Jersey, the state Motion Picture and Television Commission reported, topping the previous high of $701 million in 2022. And insiders say it’s on track for another big year in 2025.
It’s a sign, industry insiders said, that film and movie producers regained momentum once the Writers Guild of America strike in 2023 ended, and Garden State was well positioned to attract them.
“From the end of 2024 into 2025, things started really picking up steam, mostly from feature films,” said Moshe Gross, the owner of Reset Locations, a location scout based in Lakewood. “Almost everyone has smaller budgets, tighter budgets. But New Jersey is really embracing where we are right now.”
The Murphy administration has lured the industry with an increasingly generous set of tax credits. The program in the short term has attracted productions such as “Severance” at Bell Works in Holmdel and in the long term huge studios such as Netlfix at Fort Monmouth.
As a result, the industry in 2024 filmed 556 productions in New Jersey, hiring more than 30,000 crew members and bringing revenue to local caterers, restaurants and hotels, according to the Motion Picture and Television Commission.
Last year “proved that New Jersey, the birthplace of film, is the industry’s future,” said Jon Crowley, the commission’s executive director.
The potential for a brush with fame appears to be intoxicating. Some 43 towns have gone through a boot camp to help them accommodate the film industry. Recent additions include Keyport, Little Silver and Ocean Township. Meanwhile, social media buzzes with celebrity sightings at the Shore.
“Will Forte and Tina Fey (not pictured but she smiled at me earlier) filming S2 of Four Seasons in Ocean Grove, NJ today,” one Reddit user wrote last week.
The price to become the new Hollywood isn’t cheap. The state offers film companies tax credits of up to 40% of production costs, which was expected amount to about $250 million in fiscal 2026, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective, a left-leaning research group that thinks the money could be better spent.
“Passing yet another expansion of the film tax credit program to subsidize Hollywood studios, at a time when low- and middle-income families are struggling with day-to-day costs, locks the state even further into an ever-more-expensive waste of money with no end in sight,” Peter Chen, a senior policy analyst for NJPP, said earlier this year.
For now, social media feeds are blowing up with more A-listers. Jennifer Lopez was spotted on the block, or rather, a multimillion dollar mansion in Middletown overlooking the Navesink River. Cameron Diaz was in Plainfield to shoot scenes for the action-comedy “Bad Day.” Jamie Foxx was in Passaic for his new movie about a coach who takes over the U.S. Olympic Boxing Team, called “The Fight for ’84.”
Moshe Gross said he is busily scouring New Jersey’s cities and suburbs for suitable filming locales, noting producers who had been filming in Toronto, Vancouver or Atlanta are turning to New Jersey.
“I think the state positioned itself to be the top five states in the country going forward that people would want to film in.” Gross said. “I’m finding new things every single day. Always finding new things and new places to be discovered.”
Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter at the Asbury Park Press. He has been writing about the New Jersey economy and health care industry since 1999. He can be reached at [email protected].
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